Below are notes from the 3 hour DPLA in Indiana, Indiana Library Federation PreConference, held November 17, 2014 from 9 AM-12 PM.
If you have any questions, are interested in joining the DPLA IND email list, or interested in participating in conversations/contributing to the DPLA IND Working Groups, please contact Kristi Palmer, klpalmer@iupui.edu.
Presentation from DPLA representative Amy Rudersdorf: IndianaWorkshop-Rudersdorf
- DPLA is free – doesn’t necessarily mean that the digital objects are free (various levels of openness), but the metadata is
- DPLA does not host digital objects – aggregator of data (w/thumbnails)
- More than a library – includes museums, historical societies, archives etc.
(rethink digital public library as “digital cultural heritage”)
- Partners provide geographic metadata – DPLA enriches that metadata using thesauruses that interpret the information that the partner provides and translate it to geographic coordinates, makes their map view possible.
- DPLA normalizes dates for their Timeline view.
- Open data (available through API) needs to be machine actionable – interpretable by various systems to create various outputs – all DPLA partners agree that their data is open and free
– metadata is in the public domain – CC Zero license
- DPLA ingests metadata and turns it into JSON-LD (linked data = actionable)
- “The best thing to do with your data will be thought of by someone else.” – Rufus Pollock of Open Knowledge Foundation
- DPLA received a Knight Foundation Grant, “Getting It Right on Rights” – will create a standard vocabulary for rights statements
- DPLA strips out the periods that are at the end of subject terms – keeps things uniform so that the metadata from many institutions will index the same
- Very much a “scorched earth” approach, for the sake of keeping things consistent
- “There’s no small library on the web, or at least within DPLA.”
- Mountain West Digital Library saw over 100% increase in web traffic after pushing content to DPLA
- DPLA does not feature digital objects that have watermarks or bands at the bottom.
- DPLA does not work with institutional repository content, because there are so many more copyright concerns for those types of publications.
- Service Hub Structures, varied approaches. Every Hub has done it differently. See PDF presentation linked above, starting at page 52 for examples.
DPLA Efforts in Indiana Update from Kristi Palmer, Connie Rendfeld, and Jenny Johnson
- Indiana Memory was initially a gentleman’s agreement, with no signed contracts – ISL has to go back now to the initial partners to get those documents signed to push content to DPLA.
- New target for Indiana Memory test collections to go to DPLA is set for January 2014.
- How to get collections that are not in Indiana Memory into DPLA?
Brainstorm Sessions
Group 1: Institutions with Digital Collections
ACTION ITEMS:
Administrative Structure Working Group: Develop list of external funding opportunities and solicit in-kind contributions from organizations interested in contributing, time, facilities, money, work, etc.
Ideas:
- The usual major funders in Indiana: Lilly, Eskenazi, Simon
- Library specific: LSTA
Administrative Structure Working Group: Begin holding widely open teleconferences (open to all, advertised widely) to continue discussing DPLA IND management structure. NOTE: Amy Rudersdorf, DPLA encourages lightweight structure.
Communications and Outreach Working Group: Develop strategy for reaching non-library audiences.
Ideas:
- Connect with Indiana Humanities. See if ALL IN project is a good fit for sharing information.
- Participate in District ILF conferences.
- Participate in Discovery to Delivery Conference
- Participate in museum and archive conferences
- Hold a DPLA IND conference
- Explore resource sharing that pushes DPLA content into classrooms
- Connect with the IUPUI (Ball State?, others) Museum Studies and Public History programs
- Connect with corporate and special libraries
Communications and Outreach Working Group: Develop a canned presentation or a couple of canned presentations and a speaker’s bureau, individuals willing to go out and talk about DPLA IND
Permissions Working Group: Create standard talking points regarding the rights the Indiana State Library DPLA related rights form. The rights form is necessary but can be demystified and made less intimidating through a serious of plain language talking points.
Metadata and Aggregation Working Group: Form a sub committee that to begin work on aggregating non-Indiana Memory content.
Metadata and Aggregation Working Group: Offer metadata clean up assistance to meet DPLA metadata standards. Point People: Julie Hardesty, jlhardes@iu.edu and Janice Gustaferro, jgustafe@butler.edu have offered to assist with this work.
Metadata and Aggregation Working Group: Review the current metadata standards document associated with Indiana Memory collections. Does it need updating to comply with DPLA needs? If so, update. Point People: Aaron Smith, Julie Hardesty, and Janice Gustaferro.
Group 2: Institutions Seeking to Create Digital Collections
NOTES: What do entities need to create digital collections?
Metadata Help
- One entity may do the scanning, but then partners must add their own metadata requires more specialized subject knowledge to make sure that the metadata is accurate, but may not have the staff and/or expertise to do so.
- Metadata standards from the very beginning – group expressed a desire to feel confident in their metadata practices from day one, which is hard to come by.
- Vendors (“digitization hubs”) for outsourcing the digitization activities – either provide a list or actually establish a structure/system of this
- Minnetrista Cultural Center– has the equipment, but would be nice to have somebody come in to do the scanning and metadata who is familiar with standards
- Could DPLA/Indiana Memory provide information on user’s top search subjects would help to prioritize digitization activities.
Copyright Consulting
- People expressed discomfort, lack of confidence. Often serves as a barrier to beginning with digitization activities.
- Best practices/standards advice – the simpler, the better
General
- Advice on hosting services – servers – what is best and what are the options?
- Open communication as the hub develops
- Just tell me what to do – for people who aren’t able to, or do not want to be more involved in the community of DPLA Indiana (again, the simpler, the better)
- Amy mentioned that there really isn’t a stand-alone “great” program for creating digital object records – is this something that DPLA could provide (good, open source collection management system)?
- Possible resource to make available: “Making the case for digitization” – give smaller institutions and their staff the important talking points when trying to get support for digitization activities
IDEAS:
- Series of webinars potentially on the topics listed above? Would be very helpful for small organizations that may not have MLS holders (professional librarians, archivists) on staff who would be creating metadata, applying subject headings, etc.. Perhaps some of the topics do not need full webinars, but could just be separate pages/resources/toolkits on the WordPress site.
- Amy Rudersdorf: Mountain West Digital Library does a lot of webinars. Massachusetts travels and does a lot of one-on-one instruction. North Carolina has excellent basic guidelines that they make available – could be a starting-off point for the resources that DPLA Indiana may create.
- Have themed pushes for digital content – focus for a certain period of time on one subject (e.g. transportation)
QUESTION: How can we overcome the differences between institutions that approach access differently (libraries v. archives v. historical societies v. museums), to work together towards the same goal of getting Indiana content into DPLA?
ACTION ITEMS:
Metadata and Aggregation Working Group: Take a long look at standardizing the metadata terminology – will add an Indiana column to the DPLA metadata model.
Metadata and Aggregation Working Group: Tackle how to make non-CONTENTdm content more available through crosswalks – keeping standardization in mind.
Permissions Working Group: Make Indiana Memory’s legal contract more easily to digest.
Communications and Outreach Working Group: Market DPLA and Indiana Memory to institutions around the state that are non-libraries – will build presentations that can be sent out and presented in many places.
Assistant Director for Content 